Microsoft Imagine and ELMS

Overview

Microsft DreamSpark was renamed to Imagine on September 7, 2016, inline with the annual Imagine Cup competition.
Microsoft Imagine provides academic institutions access to Microsoft professional-level developer and designer tools at no charge so you can, "chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology"(Microsoft).

Imagine is provided through the Electronic License Management System (ELMS) for Imagine, software distribution solution.ELMS provides a Webstore for the easy management and distribution of Microsoft software licenses to eligible parties.

Note: CSE and the Faculty of Engineering currently run independent Imagine license agreements: select your webstore dependent on your circumstances.

Imagine software is supplied explicitly for academic instruction, academic projects and non-commercial research only.
The Imagine product key can ONLY activate the Imagine copy of the software, it will NOT activate a Retail or Trial copy.
To access ELMS for CSE, go to the CSE Imagine Webstore

The CSE Imagine agreement is between the School of Computer Science and Engineering and Microsoft.
Only CSE staff, or students currently registered in at least ONE CSE subject (i.e. current session), or in a postgraduate program, are entitled to download software from the CSE webstore.

To access ELMS for Engineering, go to the Faculty Imagine Webstore
The Faculty Imagine agreement is between the Faculty of Engineering and Microsoft.
Only Faculty staff, or students currently registered in at least ONE Faculty Of Engineering subject (i.e. current session), are entitled to download software from the Faculty webstore.
View Imagine Usage Guidelines.

ELMS for Imagine

Authentication and user data

When you select the log-in link from the ELMS home page, the ELMS system will connect to an authentication server at CSE. You will need to use your CSE credentials to log on. Your CSE username and password are entered on a system controlled by CSE and are not transferred to or stored on the ELMS site.

The authentication server returns your UNSW ID, given name, family name and CSE email address to the ELMS system. This data is necessary to create an account for you, and to enable the ELMS system to send product download information and product keys.

Obtaining product keys

Once you are logged on the ELMS system, you can request any software which has been made available. Please ensure that you use the software in accordance with the Imagine licence agreement - please read the End User Licence Agreement
and the Program Usage Guidelines.
Ensure you retain a copy of your product key as access to the ELMS webstore is revoked upon completion of your last registered CSE course.

Getting software

Downloading software with your own computer

You will need to be running a Windows operating system if you wish to download software from the ELMS site.

Using the CSE lab computers to download software

Provided you have access to an external hard disk or USB memory stick with sufficient space, you will be able to use the Windows Virtual Machine available on all CSE lab computers to download software if you do-not have access to a computer that runs a Microsoft Operating System.
ELMS uses a custom download manager which is a small executable file that you download and run. This download manager connects to the mirror server, downloads the encrypted packages containing your software and decrypts them automatically.

You must make sure that you download the software to your external storage, and not C:\temp which is the default location for the downloader application.

There is insufficient space to store both the encrypted download packages and the converted ISO images for DVD images. There may be enough space on the virtual machine's hard disk to successfully download smaller CD images.
For DVD images, we recommend that you have at least 8GB of free space on the storage device you want to download the software onto. There needs to be room for the file used for software delivery AND the unpacked software

Getting Help with ELMS for CSE Imagine

As ELMS is a third party product, you should contact e-academy directly using the information in the FAQ section of ELMS.

CSE System Support cannot assist you in retrieving your unique product-key(s) information.

CSE System Support can assist you in checking your eligibility to the CSE Imagine service.